fpectator to have a perfect view of the whole. Appropriate moral mottos were infcribed in characters of gold, upon the walls. The judges wore long laced bands, and robes of black, lined with light blue filk, with fcarfs of blue and filver fringe, and fat upon an elevated femicircular bench, raifed upon a flight of fteps, placed in a large alcove, lined with tapestry. The fecretaries, and fubordinate officers were feated below them. On the left the prifoner was placed, without irons, in the cuftody of two gend'armes, formerly called maréchauffées, who had their long fwords drawn. Thefe foldiers have a very military appearance, and are a fine and valuable body of men. I fear the refpectable impreffion which I would with to convey of them will fuffer, when I inform my reader, that they are fervants of the police, and anfwer to our Bow-ftreet runners. The fwiftnefs with which they purfue, and apprehend offenders, is für-. prifing. We were received with politenefs, and conducted to a convenient place for hearing, and feeing all that paffed. The accufateur general who fat on the left, wore a costume fimilar to that of the judgcs, without the scarf. He opened the trial by relating the circumftances, and declaiming upon the enormity of the offence, by which it appeared that the prifoner ftood charged with robbery, accompanied with breach of hofpitality; which, in that country, be the amount of the plunder ever fo trifling, is at prefent capital. The addrefs of the public accufer

was very florid, and vehement, and attended by violent gesture, occasionally graceful. The pleaders of Normandy are confidered as the moft eloquent men in France, I have heard feveral of them, but they ap

pear to me to be too impaffioned. Their motions in fpeaking frequently look like madness.

He ran

facked his language to furnish himself with reproachful epithets against the miferable wretch by the fide of him, who with his hands in his bofom appeared to listen to him with the greatcft fang froid. The witneffes who were kept feparate, previous to their giving their evidence, were numerous, and proved many robberies against him, attended with aggravated breaches of hofpitality. The court entered into proofs of offences committed by the prifoner at different times, and upon different perfons. The women who gave their teftimony, exhibited a striking contraft between the timidity of English females, confronting the many eyes of a crowded court of justice, and the calm felf poffeffion with which the French ladies here delivered their unperturbed testimony. The charges were clearly proved, and the prifoner was called upon for his defence. Undifmayed, and with all the practifed har dihood of an Old Bailey felon, he calmly declared, that he purchased the pile of booty produced in the court, for fums of money, the amount of which, he did not then know, of perfons he could not name, and in

places which he did not remember. He had no advocate. The fubject was next refumed, and clofed by the official orator who opened it. The court retired, and the criminal was re-conducted to the prifen behind the hall. After an abfence of about twenty minutes, a bell rang to announce the return of the judges, the prifoner re-entered, efcorted by a file of national guards, to hear his fate. The court refumed its fitting. The prefident addreffed the unhappy man, very briefly, recapitulated his offences, and read the decree of the republic upon them, by which he doomed him to lofe his head at four o'clock that afternoon.

It was then ten minutes past one!! The face of this wretched being prefented a fine fubject for the pencil. His countenance was dark, marked, and melancholy; over it was fpread the fallow tint of long imprisonment. His beard was unfhorn, and he difplayed an indifference to his fate, which not a little furprised me. He immediately retired, and upon his return to his cel', a priest was fent forto prepare him for his doom. At prefent, in the provinces, all criminal offences are tried before military tribunals, qualified, as I have defcribed this to be, by a mixture of civil judges and bourgeois.

It is one of the peculiar characteristics of fuch tribunals, to order immediate punishment after conviction. In the prefent inftance, the fate of the offen

der was well known, for his crimes were many, and manifeft, and as the interval allowed by military courts between the fentence, and its fulfilment, is fo very fhort, the adminiftrators of the law had poftponed his trial for five months from the period of his commitment, for the purpose of affording him an dulgent procrastination. This mode, although arifing from merciful motives, is, I am aware, open to objection; but it would be unfair to comment upon laws, which prevailed in times of revolution, and are permitted only to operate, until the fabric of French criminal jurifprudence, which is now constructing, fhall be prefented to the people. To the honor of our country, and one of the greatest ornaments of the Britifh bar, the honorable T. Erskine, in the year 1789, furnished the French with fome of thefe great principles of criminal law, which it was impoffible to perfect during the long era of convulfion, and instability which followed, and which will conftitute a confiderable part of that great, and humane code, which is about to be bestowed upon the nation, and which will, no doubt, prove to be one of the greatest bleffings, which human wisdom can confer upon human weakness.

Its foundation is nearly fimilar to that of our own.. The great and enlightened genius whofe name I have mentioned, has provided that the contumacy of one juryman fhall not be able to force the opinion of the reft.

1

After the court had broken up, I visited the town house, which, before the revolution, was the monaftery of the Benedictines, who, from what appeared of the remains of their eftablishment, must have been magnificently lodged, and well deferved during their existence, to bear the name of the bleffed. The two grand staircases are very fine, and there is a noble garden behind. Upon entering the veftibule of the council chamber, formerly the refectory, I thought I was going behind the fcenes of a theatre.

It was

nearly filled with allegorical banners, pasteboard and canvaís arches of triumph, altars, emblems of liberty, and defpotifm, and all the scenic decorations fuitable to the frenzied orgies of a republican fête. Thank [ God! they appeared to be tolerably well covered with duft and cobwebs. At the end of this noble room, feated upon a high pedestal, was the goddefs of liberty, beautifully executed in marble. "Look at "that fanguinary proftitute," cried Mons. Gto me, pointing to the ftatue, " for years have we had liberty and bloodfhed, thank Heaven we are now "no longer free." Upon which, he wrote his name in the first conful's book, which was here lying open, upon a table, for the purpose of receiving the fuffrages of the department.

The laconic irony, and manner of the speaker, afforded me a tolerably good display of the nature of